The approval of Organic Law 1/2004, of December 28, on Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender Violence brought a change of perspective in the police protection of the victim, deepening the procedures to protect women, according to Carlos Tallón Díaz, chief inspector of National Police of the Family Care Service of the Provincial Brigade of the Judicial Police of Las Palmas (UFAM).
The Chief Inspector of the UFAM stars in the second instalment of the series of interviews with experts and experts in the police and judicial field that the Delegation of the Government in the Canary Islands has carried out to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the approval of the Organic Law of Measures of Integral Protection against Gender Violence, in which he has also interviewed María Auxiliadora Díaz Velázquez, judge of the Violence against Women Court number 2 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
This series of interviews, which will be published throughout the month of December, also includes the Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, in an analysis of what was involved in the approval in December 2004 of this Organic Law and the challenges faced by the Administrations and society as a whole in guaranteeing the protection of victims and continuing to take steps to eradicate this scourge.
The approval of the Organic Law “at the police level represented a complete change of perspective. The police are a reflection of society and, as such, we have changed. There is a greater awareness of these issues in the Security Forces and Corps. And we have worked hard on the concept that it is not a crime that happens in privacy, but it is a crime that affects the whole of society and that we all have part,” says Carlos Tallón.
“It has also deepened the improvement of procedures for the protection of women and the creation of specialized units that work specifically on these issues, with a series of both computer and legal tools that greatly improve the attention to women,” she adds.
The Chief Inspector of UFAM recognizes that improvements can continue to be made, particularly with regard to the protection of victims of sexual violence, since, in his opinion, the most effective effort must be to advance the specialization of police groups for the care of women.
“From a legal point of view, I believe that the most significant change has been the establishment of protection orders. The protection orders imply that, since the beginning of the procedure, the police are given some protection from the criminal field (…), but also with civil measures,” he says.
“Now when a woman comes to file a complaint for gender violence, in a very short time in court she is given the opportunity to have measures in terms of child custody, an economic regime, housing registration. Let’s imagine what happened when there was no protection order. A woman went to a police station, to a court, told the problem she had, what had happened to her and was given a strictly criminal answer, which meant that, apart from that procedure, she had to go to a civil court and fight independently for all that is separation, the custody of children,” he stresses.